Live Concerts Has Skyrocketed These Days!!

This column I am going to touch on the cost of going to live shows and how many so-called “reunion” tours go on these days from a lot of bands from the 80’s. The cost of going to live concerts has skyrocketed recently and I am sure it is due to the fact that album sales are way down so the only way for a band to really make money is 2 things, go on the road and also merchandise sales. You go on the road, sometimes promoting a new release and you hope that a fan will purchase your new cd and/or a t-shirt, which then goes into your pocket.

Now many bands don’t draw as many people to shows anymore as not many rock or metal bands can play stadiums or even arenas anymore so a lot are forced to play clubs. I am sure it is a bit embarrassing for some of these bands that played 20,000 seat arenas back in the day to now playing clubs that may hold 1000 people. The reason for that is that many people have moved on from music. Metallica and AC/DC can play stadiums for example, but not many other metal bands. Now, this is just in the US. I know overseas there are plenty of HUGE metal fests like Wacken that draw hundreds of thousands of people every year. Not so in the US.

All These So-called “Re-Union” Tours!!! Give Me A Break!!!

Now onto subject #2. I for one am not a big fan of all these metal or rock bands from the 80’s all of the sudden reuniting and deciding to go on tour “for the fans” or the time was right “to give the people what they want”. More times than not most of these bands or band members need money so they decide to get back together and go on the road. Sometimes it does work, but more times than not it is a waste of time as the band is just going through the motions or there might be one original member in the band and the rest of the band is just young musicians performing material that they were just babies when the music was released. I just saw a video of Dokken on tour and sorry Don your voice is horrible now and you look disinterested on stage it is not funny.

Motley Crue, with all 4 original members did it right and did one last tour and played all their classics that people wanted to hear and then broke up. I hope a few years from now they don’t decide to get back together again.

Most of these 80’s band also release new material that is nowhere near as good as their past material and to put it bluntly pretty much sucks and then they cram it don’t your throat when they play like 7 songs from their new album. Hate to break to these bands, but if your like any 80’s band and you decide to tour, the people that come to the shows want to hear the classics, not your new material.

Most bands should let sleeping dogs lie and that is my take on these 2 subjects.